Unlocking Agile's Missed Potential
1. Edition October 2022
288 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Further versions
UNLOCKING AGILE'S MISSED POTENTIAL
Agile has not delivered on its promises. The business side expected faster time to market, but they still experience the long delays of bloated releases. Engineers thought they would be given time to build the product right the first time, but they are rushed under pressure to deliver new features within impossible schedules. What went wrong?
The culprit is feature-based waterfall release planning perpetuated in a vain attempt to achieve business predictability. Agile didn't address the business need for multi-year financial predictability. The Agile community's answer was the naïve response, "The business needs to be more Agile." Waterfall release planning with fixed schedules undercuts a basic tenet of Agile development - the need to adjust content delivered within a timebox to account for evolving requirements and incorporation of feedback. Agile without flexible content is not Agile.
This book introduces a novel solution that enables product teams to deliver higher value within shorter cycle times while meeting the predictability needs of the business. Organizations today want product teams that break down walls between product management and engineering to achieve schedule and financial objectives. Until now they haven't had a way to implement product teams within the rigid constraints of traditional organizational structures.
The Investment planning approach described in this book supports small development increments planned and developed by product teams aligned by common schedule and financial goals. It uses Cost of Delay principles to prioritize work with the highest value and shortest cycle times. Investments provide a vehicle for collaboration and innovation and fulfill the promise of highly motivated self-directed Agile development teams.
This book is for engineers, product managers and project managers who want to finally do Agile the way it was envisioned. This book is also for leaders who want to build high-performance teams around the inherent motivational environment of Agile when done right.
Foreword by Steve McConnell, author of More Effective Agile: A Roadmap for Software Leaders (Construx Press, 2019).
Preface 13
Introduction 16
The Lost Potential of Agile Development 16
Missed Business Expectations 18
A New Approach to Agile Planning 19
Addressing Traditional Software Development Challenges 21
Motivation and Innovation 22
Your Organization 22
Chapter 1: The Persistence of Waterfall Planning 23
Introduction to AccuWiz 23
The New COO 24
Product Management 24
PMO 25
Engineering 25
Customer Perspective 26
Synopsis 26
Summary 27
Chapter 2 - Why Agile has Struggled 29
Agile Development Fundamentals 30
The Agile Revolution 30
Scrum 31
Kanban 34
Barriers to Real Agile 35
Schedule Pressure 35
The "Motivation" Factor 37
The Mythical Product Owner 39
Feature Planning 40
Agile Scaling Frameworks 41
Summary 42
Chapter 3: Embracing Software Development Variance 43
The Cone of Uncertainty 43
Software Development Estimation Variance Explained 44
Making and Meeting Feature Commitments 45
How Other Departments Meet Commitments 47
Agile Development Implications 48
Summary 48
Chapter 4: Cost of Delay 49
Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) 50
Cost of Delay Basics 50
Example 52
WSJF Proof 54
CoD and Net Present Value (NPV) Prioritization Methods 56
Non-linear Income Profiles 57
CoD for Non-Linear Cumulative Income Profiles 58
Payback Period CoD Method 58
Third-year Income Slope CoD Method 58
CoD NPV Method 63
CoD Computation Method 64
WSJF and Traditional Finance 66
ROI 66
Investment Rate of Return (IRR) 67
WSJF versus ROI Prioritization 67
Summary 69
Chapter 5: Investment Fundamentals 70
Investments, Initiatives and Programs 70
Investment Hierarchy 71
AccuWiz Investment Examples 74
Portfolio Allocation 75
Investment Forecasts 76
Development Effort and Cost 76
Investment Income Forecasts 78
Investment Backlogs 81
Investment WIP 82
Investment Backlog WIP 82
Investment WIP 83
Technical Debt Investments 84
Summary 86
Chapter 6: Maximizing Investment Value 87
Great Products 87
Business Model Value Considerations 89
Stakeholder Value Analysis 90
Gilb Stakeholder Definition 90
Ford's Big Mistake 92
Trucking Fleet Management Example 93
Five Whys 95
User Scenarios 96
Summary 97
Chapter 7: Planning High-Value Investment Features 99
Avoiding the Feature Pit 99
Feature ROI 100
Summary 104
Chapter 8: Releasing Investments 105
Release Opportunity Cost 105
Investment Release Bundling 108
Investment Pricing 108
Lack of Customer Acceptance 110
Release Overhead Costs 111
Overcoming Modular Release Challenges 113
Architecture for Modular Deployment 113
Configuration Management 113
Release Investment Prioritization 114
Reducing Software Inventory Costs 115
Summary 118
Chapter 9: Meeting Investment Targets 120
Meeting Commitments 120
Investment Teams 120
Managing Investment Scope 123
Managing Sales Requests 127
Summary 129
Chapter 10: Investment Planning Template 130
Investment Description 130
Proxy Business Case 130
Product Stakeholder Analysis 132
Customer Product Stakeholders 132
Internal Product Stakeholders 132
Constraints 132
Competition 133
Acceptance Criteria 133
Go-to-Market Plan 134
Pricing Model 134
Deployment Model 134
Sales Channels 134
Investment Targets 134
Development Cost 134
Cycle Time 134
Income Projections 134
WSJF 136
Assumption Validation 136
Summary 138
Chapter 11: Managing the Agile Roadmap 139
The Agile Roadmap Management Database 139
The Agile Technology Roadmap 141
Stages of Technology Acquisition 142
Investment Technology Roadmaps 143
Summary 143
Chapter 12: Maximizing Investment Development Productivity 145
Measuring Software Productivity 145
Cost of Quality (CoQ) 146
Cost of Quality and Software Productivity 147
Sources of Software Rework 149
Agile Cost of Quality 150
Reducing Agile User Story Rework 152
Reducing Agile Defect Rework 153
Agile Cost of Quality Example 154
Summary 155
Chapter 13: Motivating Agile Teams 156
Background 156
Why You're the Only Smart One in Your Organization 157
Consequences and Behavior 158
Performance and Organizational Culture 159
Behavior and Software Quality 163
Intrinsic Motivation 164
Agile and Motivation 165
Measuring Motivation 167
Motivation Advice 169
Summary 171
Chapter 14: Innovating with Investments 173
Innovation - A Working Definition 174
Investments as an Innovation Vehicle 175
Why Your Organization Can't Innovate 176
An Organizational Behavior Model of Innovation 178
An Innovation Tale of Two Companies 181
Creating a Culture of Innovation 184
Summary 188
Chapter 15: AccuWiz Gets it Together 189
The Founder Meeting 189
The Announcement 190
Product Stakeholder Analysis 191
Creating the Investment Backlog 192
Customer Management 195
Investment Development 195
Project Management 196
Managers 197
Executive Team 198
Innovation is Revived 199
Synopsis 199
Chapter 16: Getting it Together in your Company: A Practical Guide 200
Step 1: Organizational Support 200
Influence Strategy 204
Step 2: Stakeholder Value Analysis 205
Step 3: Stakeholder Research 206
Step 4: Stakeholder Interviews 207
Step 5: Investments 207
User Scenarios 208
Feature Definition 209
WSJF Screening 209
Step 6: Initial Roadmap 210
Resource Allocation 211
Step 7: Investment Planning 214
Agile Roadmap Alignment Meeting 215
Program Review 216
Step 8: Consequence Alignment 217
Summary 220
Appendix 1: General Cost of Delay Formula 221
Reinertsen WSJF 222
Income Curve Approximation 223
Summary 225
Appendix 2: Investment Income Profile Forecasts 226
Appendix 3: Release Cycle Productivity Formula 228
Appendix 4: Rework and Productivity 232
Appendix 5: Innovation Behavior Survey 233
Glossary 238
Index 246
